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Employee Stand By Pay Help Please

Just curious to know what systems you guys have in place for employee stand by pay during the winter months. What has worked best for you and what carrots have you dangled to make sure they show up every night when needed?

Not sure what you mean by "stand by pay". We pay our employees their hourly overtime rate for all snow work performed. So if they only work, lets say 25 hours a week, they are getting almost a full week's pay. Some weeks are feast, some are famine.

Stand by pay refers to a weekly minimum we would pay our font line on-call staff to be at our beckoned call. I too have increased hourly rates for the winter.

A famine situation does nobody any good-and creates problems. I have heard of some guys not being able to get a hold of their drivers or walk guys because they were trying to live through a famine spell, and couldnt afford their phone bills.

Now keep in mind we dont do any pay per push type of plowing, money is always coming in, as all our work is all fixed contract, paid monthly.

We have some employees that only work for us in the winter. They get paid a fixed daily rate to be on stand by, plus an hourly rate when they work, and a monthly bonus for coming in everytime when called. They will only get their standby pay after they have come in for a shift, and failing to come in forfeits their stanby pay, and any monthly bonus they would be entitled to.

Others (year round guys) are on year round salary, so it doenst really matter. .

Just wondering how others are paying thier front line guys during the winter-thats all.

The way we do it, is to determine their winter pay in advance. We take that amount and divide it by 28 weeks. Now they have a guaranteed pay per week. Regardless of what happens thats their pay for the week. It starts Nov. 1st and goes till end of April. If they should miss then they lose thats week pay + what I paid someone else to replace them. This has worked very well for us. Its very straight forward, and the guys have a weekly pay they can count on. Our policy never miss more than once, or your gone.

Example my best guys. $8,000.00 for the season divided by 28 weeks = $285.00
So some weeks no snow falls they get $285.00.
Then one week snow falls 3 times and they work 30 hrs they still get $285.00

Now you missed work once in that 3 time week. You are out $285.00 + the 10 hrs I paid someone to replace you. I must say guys rarely miss. There are some exceptions.
Like a birth of a child, or a funeral etc.

This has worked for us for a long time. Most of the guys who work for me, have been doing so 10+ years.

I use the "bonus program" they get an hourly rate, depending its around 17 or so

then they get a $500. dollar bonus plus $3 dollars extra for every hour that they worked that month.

heres the catch... if they cant show up, it is THEIR JOB to call and find a replacement, with in 2 hours of starting the routes.... if no one shows up in there place, then he losses alll the money that month. if it is just a shovler, then i dont really care, but those guys that plow or use equiptment, i must know, and train them ahead of time....

so what happens is ... i have a guy PAT , who works for me, in another month we will do snow training, which pat will come to.... pat will also bring like 4 of his friends, .....just so they can get trained on the equiptment that he uses,,, i will make them all drive it, so i can see how there skills are... most are good enough to except , some i have to tell Pat , not to bring back. Normally when they do call in , the replacement will get switched over to a small tractor , or hand shovel anyway... no amatures in my trucks

other things that im adding this year, included turning in all papper work in 48hrs... that includes all receipts, and the CC i keep in all the trucks better balance out....bring the trucks back clean inside... stuff like that